Google Nexus 7

The good: The Nexus 7's quad-core Tegra 3 processor delivers fast performance and a beautiful and responsive screen. Also, it's comfortable to hold and Android 4.1 brings a surplus of welcome additions. At only $200, the Nexus 7 is a steal.

The bad: The lack of built-in expandable storage and omission of HDMI are disappointing, and the design follows the plain, black tablet mold. The top and bottom bezels are a bit too thick.

The bottom line: With a beautiful screen, fast performance, a comfortable design, and overall great media options, the Nexus 7 is easily the best 7-inch tablet available and one of the top tablets on the market.

The Nexus 7 tablet embodies the moment when tablet buyers no longer have to compromise performance for price. No other 7-inch, $200 to $250 tablet combines this level of performance, with Android 4.1's features, in such a comfortable design.

What buyers lose with the lack of built-in expandable storage options and the omission of a back camera, they’ll gain in complete OS flexibility in a powerful and cheap tablet.
Design

Yep, the Nexus 7 is yet another black tablet (unless you got one with a white back at Google I/O) in the long line of black tablets. Yet, it does its best to break from the cookie cutter mold of most slates. Chief among those efforts is a rubbery, leathery, grippy back texture, similar to what we saw on the Acer Iconia Tab A510, but with both "Nexus" and "Asus" embossed on it. It may not look like much, but the inclusion of this seemingly small bit of design panache makes the tablet one of the most comfortable I've ever held.
Then there's the bezel. Held in portrait, the right and left side bezels of the tablet are refreshingly thin, while the top and bottom are thicker than what I usually find on 7-inch tablets. While the thicker bezel design can be useful as a place to rest your thumbs while holding the tablet, they are a bit too thick for my taste and make the tablet feel needlessly long.

Speaking of holding, the Nexus 7 is noticeably lighter than the Kindle Fire and, thanks to its beveled bottom and painted silver trim, actually looks thinner. Or at least sleeker. There's definitely some kind of slimming illusion going on, as I wasn't the only one to think it's much skinnier than the Kindle Fire. Turns out, it is thinner, but only by 0.04 inch.